From Wundry, I'm Rufus Griskum, and this is a special episode of the next big idea. I think it's safe to say that most of us, whether or not we're qualified are

spending a lot of time these days devouring the news, analyzing data, trying

to get a read on what is going to happen in the coming

weeks, months, and years. We're anxious about the future, but increasingly I find myself

preoccupied with the past.

Lately I've been wondering what lessons can we learn from previous pandemics that might help us find a way out of this one.

And can these insights from history drive tomorrow's breakthroughs?

To get answers to those questions, I called

up my old friend Stephen Johnson. Stephen has written 11 books about

scientific progress and one of them, Ghost Map, feels like a central reading right now.

It's part forensic history and part detective story

about how the cholera epidemic in London in 1854

not only revolutionized medicine,

but also changed urban life as we know it. for not

the revolutionized medicine, but also changed urban life as we know it. When he's not writing bestsellers, Stephen hosts American Innovations,

a podcast from Wundry about, well, the title says it all. He's got a new series out now called

fighting coronavirus, about the bold thinking that will hopefully lead us out of this crisis,

and I wanted to talk to him about some of those ideas.

So I caught up with Stephen last week

while he was holed up with his family

in a cabin in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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